Assimilate All Talents

One of the bandits rallied those who were still hesitating. "It’s just five of them while we are in the hundreds!"

Lapis, Rex, and Aron charged headfirst into the fray, while Duncan stayed back to protect Nataly as she chanted.

Lapis dived into the middle of a group of bandits, who without hesitation attacked her with various weapons and skills.

"What?!"

"How is that possible?!"

The bandits gaped in awe as she dodged every single one of their strikes. She bent her body in unnatural ways, making all their swings and stabs just miss her by an inch. As she dodged, her spear moved as well, striking out at the most opportune times, killing the unlucky bandits in one motion.

As the numbers surrounding her grew, she crouched down and held her spear up. Her hands rolled to the bottom of her spear as she gripped it and used her talent skill [Viper Bite]. The spear came to life as it bent and rapidly stabbed all those near her.

The bandits that were stabbed yelled in pain but quickly realized they weren’t badly injured.

"Keep going!" a bandit urged.

They continued to attack Lapis, but she either perfectly moved her body out of their trajectory or her spear bent itself in the way to block the attack.

As the onslaught continued, something went awry for the bandits. Out of nowhere, they began collapsing on the ground with their eyes rolled upward. Upon closer inspection, they were the bandits she stabbed with her talent skill [Viper Bite], and the area they were stabbed moments ago turned black as the poison did its job.

Not far away from her battle, Rex and Aron were working together to clear out their own group.

Rex used his short sword to cut down the bandits as they came, none able to withstand his strikes. He was strong and precise, each cut aiming between the gaps of armor, requiring little effort to cut through.

Aron stood behind him, covering a smaller area. Though he was only C-Rank, he was also much stronger than the average C-Ranker. He wouldn’t have been able to become a knight if he wasn’t.

The bandits discovered he was the weakest of the three and chose to target him, but that turned out to be a mistake. Just because he was a wild pugilist didn’t mean he had no way of attacking groups of enemies at the same time.

Aron let out a roar and slammed both his hands together, releasing a booming shockwave that stunned those in front of him. He then punched forward with his skill [Howling Fist], which sent a strong blast of force to the stunned bandits.

Any bandit within a straight 15 foot line from that strike was violently smashed backward into more bandits, resulting in nearly 30 dead or critically injured.

"Woah," Rex commented as he slashed two bandits with one swing. "Can you do that like ten more times?"

Aron shook his head. "I can do it again in like five minutes."

"Ah, we’ll probably be done by then. Look over there."

Rex pointed with his chin towards Nataly and Duncan.

The two were surrounded by nearly a hundred bandits but were unable to get within five feet of them thanks to the glowing silver dome around them. Duncan had used his talent skill [Shimmer Dome], which completely protected them. Even the bandit mages were unable to do anything, as their strongest attacks could only make the barrier shake slightly.

Within the safety of the barrier, Nataly had been chanting non-stop.

"[Tree Sentinel]!"

From the ground, a massive tree sprouted. Its trunk at the bottom split in four as it stood up and began attacking the bandits. Bandits did their best to deal with the monstrosity, but it was five times their size, and a normal swing would send them flying.

A tank specialized bandit stood in its way and did his best to hold it back. While doing so, he yelled for the help of the mages.

"We need fire spells!"

"…emerge and burn all in my way, [Flame Pillar]!"

One was already chanting it the moment he saw the tree sentinel appear. A pillar of fire erupted from the mage’s staff as it burned the giant tree. The tree easily caught on fire, but immune to the pain, it continued swinging, though it wouldn’t last long.

Luckily, Nataly was almost done chanting her next spell.

"[Wild Growth]!"

The tree, though still on fire, began to regrow its burnt parts rapidly. Eventually, the flames died out, and a tree twice as big as before emerged. It slammed downwards, sending the poor bandit that had been holding it back two feet into the ground before turning its attention to the bandit mages.

The bandits did their best to stop the tree, but it regrew from everything they threw at it, and it ended up making the tree bigger and stronger. Normally, they would focus on taking down the mage that created it, but they were unable to get past the silver barrier, forcing them to take on the tree monster instead.

As this happened, Nataly was chugging a mana potion. The cost of maintaining the tree monster and the regeneration spell was rapidly consuming her mana. Fortunately, they had more than enough potions for her to keep this spell combination active for over a full hour.

A few bandits had noticed that the battle was not going in their favor against any of the five enemies and tried to silently disappear from the battle. This didn’t escape the notice of Rex, but he didn’t do anything to stop them.

’I’ll just find them when we’re cleaning up later. Wonder how the Captain is doing though.’

…

A few moments prior to the brawl.

BOOM!

Within the main building of the fort, there were private rooms that used to be used by high ranking army personnel when the fort was still in use. Now those rooms were inhabited by Zayn and 12 B-Rankers who were rushing out of their rooms with their weapons drawn.

"Does anyone know who is attacking us?" one of them asked.

Another shook their head. "No, but could it be the orcs?"

The woman who met with Zayn earlier that day spoke, "I could see them from the window. It’s five knights; they are likely here for the captured townsfolk."

Zayn quickly formulated a plan. "They either don’t know how many B-Rankers we are or they know and think they can win regardless. Let’s not take any chances. Larry and Nedvar, take this communication gem and head to the prison downstairs. If I give the signal, kill them. That should make them hesitate."

Larry took the gem from Zayn and ran downstairs with Nedvar.

"The rest of you, with me. Let’s show our strength in numbers."

The bandits nodded and followed behind him, but before they could go, a wall of stone blocked their exit.

A taunting voice came from behind them. "Hoh? Show me the strength in your numbers then."